Bethesda, Maryland (November 18, 2002) — Baylor College of Medicine received the 2002 Award for Excellence in Human Research Protection. The 2002 Award winners were announced today by Dr. Peter G. Goldschmidt, President and Founder of the Health Improvement Institute. "We were delighted to have received a substantial number of high quality entries for the inaugural year of the annual competition."

Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, received the top honor for their best practice entitled "BRAIN, Biomedical Research and Assurance Information Network." BRAIN is a web-based application that supports creating, routing, reviewing, signing, amending, reporting, and auditing research protocols submitted to the Baylor College of Medicine Institutional Review Board.

Winners of the Award of Excellence for best practice included:

• Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Boston, MA, for QACT, Quality Assurance Office for Clinical Trials, for its system to ensure protection of human subjects.
• McGuire VA Medical Center; McGuire Research Institute, Richmond, VA, for the development of software called MIRB, to record and to retrieve details about protocols and IRB actions.
• National Institute of Mental Health, Intramural Research Program, Bethesda, MD, for CORE, Central Office for Recruitment and Evaluation, for its efforts to improve human subjects protections for patients participating in studies at the National Institute of Mental Health.
• Washington University School of Medicine Human Studies Committee, St Louis, MO, for its comprehensive education program geared toward anyone conducting or reviewing research at the University.
  

Winner of the Award of Excellence for innovation:

• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, for QuIC, the Quality of Informed Consent, a validated questionnaire, to measure understanding of clinical trials among research participants.
  

"There is excellent and ethical research being done throughout the United States and these new awards celebrate the individuals and organizations who do it best." said Dr. Peter Goldschmidt, President of the Health Improvement Institute. "This first national award recognizes research institutions that have found innovative ways to improve the process of protecting people who volunteer to participate in research. We applaud their effort, and encourage all research institutions to enter the 2003 competition." The Institute will disseminate award-winning practices and innovations later this year through its website.

"Each step forward in recognizing quality and excellence in human research protection programs means more lives made better and easier," said Dr. Greg Koski, director of the federal Office for Human Research Protections, of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "We applaud each of today’s winners for their excellent contributions to the field of human subject protections. "

The Health Improvement Institute created this new series of awards. The Office for Human Research Protections of the Department of Health and Human Services is the founding sponsor of the awards program. It represents an innovative public-private partnership. Additional financial support was provided by Pfizer, Inc. and MCMC llc. Judges and Committee and Award Advisory Board members are volunteers.

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The Health Improvement Institute is a non-profit 501(c)3 charitable organization dedicated to improving the quality and productivity of America’s health care. The Institute conducts forums on emerging treatments and sponsors national awards recognizing excellence in health communications.

The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) – together with the federal Food and Drug Administration – oversees programs for the protections of human subjects at more than 4,000 HHS-funded universities, hospitals, and other medical and behavioral research institutions and private research sites in the United States and abroad. OHRP focuses on proactive education and quality improvement initiatives, together with enhanced compliance oversight and surveillance, to achieve greater effectiveness and accountability in human research protection programs. To complement its oversight role, OHRP promotes private, voluntary accreditation as a means to improve the overall quality and effectiveness of the system for protection of research participants.

For more information about the awards or becoming a sponsor of the awards program, please contact Awards Coordinator at 301-320-0971 or by email hii@hii.org.

To view details of Awards